Gun Owners Fire Volley at Bureaucrats : Registration: They say efforts to obey law on possessing semiautomatic weapons were met with rudeness and lack of cooperation.

By CARL INGRAM

Nov. 29, 1990 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

SACRAMENTO —

Owners of assault guns angrily protested Wednesday that they have tried to obey a law that requires them to register their weapons but were prevented from doing so by rude and uncooperative law enforcement bureaucrats.

A state Department of Justice official conceded that administrative foul-ups had occurred and promised to immediately streamline the process so citizens can more easily comply with the Dec. 31 registration deadline.

Robert Drake, whose Bureau of Justice Information Services handles registration of legally acquired assault guns, said requests for registration documents can be sent directly to his office and applications will be processed as promptly as possible.

“If someone is really trying and cannot get the information, we will mail it to them,” Drake said.

Under California’s landmark “Assault Weapons Control Act,” owners of legally obtained assault guns must register them by Dec. 31 or face a $350 fine for the first violation and stiffer fines or jail sentences for subsequent offenses.

The registration provision of the 1989 law was intended to enable law-abiding owners of legal semiautomatic military-style combat weapons to keep them even though the law’s main intent was to ban their importation, manufacture, distribution, sale and transfer. The prohibition provisions took effect Jan. 1.

Only 5,150 assault weapons have been registered in California since the law was signed in May, 1989. Although no one can be certain, the National Rifle Assn. and the Justice Department believe there are about 300,000 such weapons in private hands statewide.

A top-level official of the National Rifle Assn. suggested Tuesday that the meager number of registrations reflected a mounting expression of civil disobedience by California assault gun owners who believe the state law violates their constitutional right to keep and bear arms.

But assault gun owners throughout Southern California swamped The Times with telephone calls on Wednesday, insisting they were not part of any civil disobedience. They asserted that local police and sheriff’s offices and the state Department of Justice itself thwarted repeated attempts to register their firearms.

In several cases, the callers said they tried to obtain the forms from police and sheriff’s stations in Los Angeles County, but were told no such materials existed. Calls to the state Department of Justice were met by rude and unhelpful answers, they said.

“We are citizens, not criminals,” one caller told a reporter. “We’re asking for help. I feel like saying, ‘well, stuff it. I’m not registering my weapons.’ ”

An owner of an Uzi assault carbine seeking information said he was told by an employee answering the department’s telephone that his gun couldn’t possibly be registered by Dec. 31. “That makes me illegal, doesn’t it?” the caller said he asked. “She said, ‘It certainly does.’ ”

All callers to The Times asked not to be identified because they feared their homes would be burglarized for guns. Some also said they believed they might encounter trouble from law enforcement authorities for complaining.

Under the registration procedure, gun owners are told they can obtain registration materials at local police and sheriff’s offices and must provide a thumbprint. The materials plus a $20 check for handling fees then must be sent to the Justice Department in Sacramento, which is then supposed to send a letter acknowledging receipt of the forms and follow up with a second letter as “your proof of assault gun registration.”

Drake said it was a daunting task to develop and implement the first-ever assault gun registration program and that snafus occurred, particularly at large police and sheriff’s departments.

For example, he said, a crate of registration forms was sent to the headquarters of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department last Christmas “and just sat there until somebody realized, ‘Oh, gee, we’ve got to get these out.’ ”

In other cases, Drake said, local law enforcement agencies balked at performing the extra work and some substations and precinct branches never received the forms from their headquarters.

Told of the caller complaints, Drake said: “I have great sympathy and regret it. We did the best we could do. We were working with 440 police departments and 58 sheriff’s departments.”

Drake said if gun owners cannot obtain materials at local police and sheriff’s agencies, they can write to the Department of Justice, Automated Firearms System, P.O. Box 903417, Sacramento, Calif. 94203-4170 or call (916) 739-2773.

REGISTRATION REQUIRED

Here is a list of semiautomatic weapons requiring registration by owners before Dec. 31:

RIFLES

All Avtomat Kalashnikov assault arms (AK-47), regardless of manufacturer

Armalite AR-180 carbine

Beretta AR-70 (SC-70)

Bushmaster assault rifle

Calico M-900 assault carbine

CETME G-3

Colt AR-15 series and CAR-15 series

Daewoo K-1, K-2 (also called Max 1 and Max 2)

Fabrique Nationale FN/FAL, FN/LAR and FNC